I shouted at him “You’re acting like a crazy person!” while he sat there, with a flat affect, looking straight ahead across the kitchen table into nothingness. I knew I had gone too far, was too angry with him and yet I said it. He was supposed to be home an hour earlier as he was grounded, and it was the last day of school. He wasn’t responding to my verbal injections, my attempt to get a rise out of him. He just sat there, like he wasn’t even engaged, didn’t care and it was pissing me off.
Before I even started, I knew I shouldn’t have engaged. It was the last day of my job, I had just quit my job with no plan other than to help fix my family. Our world had descended into a giant ball of overwhelmingness and I knew I needed to right size things. I was working in downtown Seattle, gone 60-70 hours a week because of the commute and nature of the job, chasing my career dreams. My poor husband felt like a single dad, afraid to vocalize his heightened levels of anxiety because he didn’t want to crush my dreams. But I could tell he was hanging by a thread and it was impacting our relationship, which is never good.
We had spent the last year watching our son slip away from us. He was failing school, depressed, and not effectively coping with anything. We had tried various counselors and antidepressants before but with little effect. This last year was different though. In late February he tried to kill himself by taking an overdose of Tylenol. Something beyond the “normal” depression he’d been exhibiting had settled in. It was big, we were scared, and quite frankly not proactive enough.
I called him crazy on June 15th. On October 10th, he would run away, and the first episode of mania would reveal itself. By the end of October, we would realize he was at least bipolar and possibly had schizoaffective disorder. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. He still brings up that I called him crazy that day because I think it hurt him and it scared him, confirming what he’d already been considering himself.
By the end of October, he had gone through months of seeing faces in the wall, feeling like people were watching him, and hearing voices from creatures that were threatening to hurt him. He would have days where he could barely get out of bed, be so depressed and feel so worthless that he wasn’t worthy of living. When the mania hit, I knew exactly what it was and was relieved we’d established a relationship with a psychiatrist and a counselor. I also felt relief, it was something I could grab onto and work with, a potential diagnosis with interventions my medical background could work with. I’m a nurse, that means I know how to educate, advocate, and coordinate.
Our journey is just beginning, and we’ve switched care teams, but I feel like we are on the right path. I found more manageable work closer to home, my husband and I prioritize supporting one another, and my son isn’t crazy. He’s a young man with mental health disease that we are trying to normalize, trying to survive some days, and fighting for a future where he is enabled to be his best self.
I plan to share our history, our journey, and our goals through these postings. Perhaps its cathartic, perhaps it is healing of a sort, and perhaps it will help others not feel so alone in their own journey.
The Weary Quill 